HD in RAM: removes need for HDF?

[Hungry Horace]

ok, so i kept myself up far too late last night experimenting with pspuae.


with the new memory options i've managed to do some interesting things.

i've managed to successfully load the HD versions of a few games entirely from the Ram Disk: , copying the needed files from ADFs.

this uses a "boot disk" i've created, which then runs a small scrpt, asks you for the special "HD disks" which you have to insert, and then (eventually) loads the game.

this does mean that the game can take a damn long time to load, but if once it is loaded you cam save the game as a save-state, and the in-game loading time is next-to-nothing as it's entirely accessed from Ram:

this will clearly work best for those games which access the disk a lot during gameplay, but otherwise dont use much memory.


Since this is a big problem with sensible software games, i can happily report i've managed to successful run this technique with SWOS, Sensi Golf and Mega Lo Mania.... and they are a damn-site more bareable with this technique! (also managed it with NZS but this runs badly anyway)

sadly i've had trouble getting Rainbow Islands to run (it starts but quits out before the menu) and i'll be working on gettng more games to load through this technique.... it's a shame that there is a bug with HD installed swos that makes it crash on starting a career too. (i'm looking it this!)

i just throught i'd share this promising concept with you all... perhaps coupled with more savestates, and the option to save key-settings with them, this *could* replace the need for HD supprt?  maybe not as it's a bit memory inefficient!


-- edit-- found the problem with rainbow islands... it seems the whdload slave only works with 68020  - even on winuae ... still - it works now!

-- more edits -- add Tower Assualt to the list   it uses the boot-disk and 4 (!!!) other disks to load, and you might as well go and cook your dinner or something while it does the initial run, but it plays rather nicely and is much better without long in-game loading times

[Hungry Horace]

ok, i think i might compile a list of games i've done this with... i may post all the savestates on  my website too in time:

Alien Breed Tower Assualt
Sensible Golf
SWOS (bugged - can be fixed with cycle exact)
Rainbow Islands
New Zealand Story
Lemmings
Mega Lo Mania
Project - X CD32 (3 Floppies)
Turrican 2 CDTV (2 Floppies)
AlienBreed Special Edition CD32 (Now 100% Stable, no crash on loading of SaveState)
Speedball 2 (JST)
Crazy Cars III (2 Floppies)
AlienBreed Tower Assault CD32 (AGA, useless at the moment, 4 Floppies)
AlienBreed 2 The Horror Continues (AGA, useless at the moment, 2 Floppies)
Cybernoid
Cybernoid 2
Magic Pockets
Turrican
Venus The Fly Trap (1 Extended 1.7mb Floppy, so only works if mem set to 4 megs total)
AnotherWorld (2 Floppies)
Dune II (4 Floppies)
Midnight Resistance
It Came From The Desert
Gods
Xenon II
Wings
Supremacy
Lotus 1
Lotus 2
Apidya
Apprentice
Assassin Special Edition
Awesome
James Pond
James Pond 2: Robocod
Revenge of the Mutant Camels
Llamatron
Legend
Flashback
Cj`s Elephant Antics
Defender Of The Crown
DynaBlaster
Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters
Captain Planet
Carvup
Blinky`s Scary School
Blues Brothers
Bubble Bobble
IK+ (No SFX, only Music)
Aquaventura
ChaseHQ
ChaseHQ2
SuperCars 2
Indy Heat
Golden Axe
Harlequin
Jumping Jackson
Marble Madness
Mickey Mouse
New Zealand Story
Nitro
Outrun Europe
Prince Of Persia
Push Over
Quik And Silva
R-Type
Road Blasters
Road Rash
WolfChild
Lamburgini American Challenge CD32 (100% Stable, no crash on SaveState load)

[FOL]

ok, i think i might compile a list of games i've done this with... i may post all the savestates on  my website too in time:

Alien Breed Tower Assualt
Sensible Golf
SWOS (bugged - not the fault of pspuae)
Rainbow Islands
New Zealand Story
Lemmings

Ive started looking at this, but I picked my favorite game, that turned out to have some clever protection, I got around that, and it now loads but still has a problem, I keep you posted

[Hungry Horace]

protection on a WHDload install?  never!

[FOL]

protection on a WHDload install?  never!

lol, i told you what i was going to do, wasnt thinking of WHDLOAD, . Was thinking of using miggy dos.

[FOL]

K, finally got round to making my first 1, I have decided to concentrate on CD32 games.

First being Project-X CD32. Now I have a working format, ill make some more.

Horace, check FTP, ill leave it there for you to test.

[Hungry Horace]

it occured to me earlier that i may hve missed out on the possiblity of unpacking files from the ADF directly into ram: rather than copying them there and unpacking.... this may save a little bit of memory, although i expect not much, and may take EVEN longer to run on the initial setup.

the trouble is pspuae still has its limits, so not everything will be possible (B.A.S.S for example)  but the majority of game could be much improved.

also, i find its very difficult for pspuae to load big savestates after loding small ones.... it runs out of memory (leak somewhere?) but if you stick to larger savestates, it's fine.

[FOL]

it occured to me earlier that i may hve missed out on the possiblity of unpacking files from the ADF directly into ram: rather than copying them there and unpacking.... this may save a little bit of memory, although i expect not much, and may take EVEN longer to run on the initial setup.

the trouble is pspuae still has its limits, so not everything will be possible (B.A.S.S for example)  but the majority of game could be much improved.

also, i find its very difficult for pspuae to load big savestates after loding small ones.... it runs out of memory (leak somewhere?) but if you stick to larger savestates, it's fine.

Take it my PX-CD32 ram installer worked. . There are some good games on CD32, and they run fine on PSPUAE as alot dont need the AGA chipset.

You are right, PSPUAE has memory problems, as I found out with the new tiff exploit. It wont go as high as the V1.50 and GTA exploit, but Ric has really improved it, 

[Hungry Horace]

i havnt tried it yet because its 7 disks!!!

will be doing a few more myself tonight though

been too busy playing Exploding Fist for now.... thanks a lot Hai 

[FOL]

i havnt tried it yet because its 7 disks!!!

will be doing a few more myself tonight though

been too busy playing Exploding Fist for now.... thanks a lot Hai 

imo, it dont matter how many disks it is, it only has to be used once, . I have also discovered something else with the adf emulation, which im looking into.

[FOL]

Right, got 2 working so far.
All are downloadable via FTP for Horace, as im still testing them


They are:-

Project - X CD32
Turrican 2 CDTV (Prefer this 1 as it has the intro, not shown on the ADF version)
AlienBreed Special Edition CD32

[FOL]

Added another 2 installers, they work, but are screwed due to needing aga chipset.
Horace, check the last ADF of TACD32, you will find a supprise (clue check its size)

[FOL]

AnotherWorld done

[FOL]

Dune II Done

[Hungry Horace]

few more added to the list